Wrangel Island: description and history. A brief history of the discovery of Wrangel Island Wrangel Island when it was discovered

Off the coast of Chukotka. The Chukchi call it “the island of polar bears.” Wrangel Island belongs to the Iultinsky district of Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. The 180th meridian, known as the “date line,” passes through Wrangel Island, so there are always two different dates on the island. Due to the harsh Arctic climate and remoteness from civilization, Wrangel Island is practically uninhabited. Only occasionally do warships come here to plant a flag or build a radio station.

Wrangel Island on the map, which can be controlled (scaled and moved)

Wrangel Island - coordinates: 71.2266693 north latitude and 179.4616699 west longitude

The rocky island, washed by the icy waters of the Arctic Ocean, proudly bears the name of the Russian navigator and explorer Wrangel. On the island there is a reserve of the same name, protected by UNESCO.

The island, where nature fascinates with its immense beauty, lies at the junction of the western and eastern hemispheres. From mid-November to January comes polar night, diligently enveloping the island in a black veil. At this time, seeing the border between land and sea depths becomes almost impossible. The local landscape takes on thousands of shades thanks to the moonlight reflecting from the icy surface. Lovers of local beauty recommend visiting this protected corner of the Arctic, if only to see the incredible a natural phenomenon- northern lights.

The polar day, lasting from May to July, enlivens the entire environment of the island and the reserve in particular. Although the heat from this solar phenomenon does not become larger, the flora and fauna become more active. At this time, Wrangel Island is filled with many species of birds flying to this area for nesting grounds.

If we talk about the size of the island, they are quite impressive. The area is 7670 km², more than half of which is filled with mountains. The width is 150 kilometers, and the length reaches 125. The highest point of the island is considered to be Mount Sovetskaya, the peak of which is at 1096 meters.

Wrangel Island records:

The remains of a dwarf mammoth, a previously unknown species, were discovered on the island. The mammoth lived in this territory even 6000 years after the established date of extinction of the mammoth population throughout the world!

The climatic features of the island are very harsh; even global warming of the planet is not improved by the harsh icy winds without moisture during the polar night, as well as frequent dense fogs with the onset of the polar day. The average annual temperature is around +11°C.

Features of the Wrangel Island Nature Reserve.

The flora is very unique, and still breaks records in terms of its quantitative value. 331 species of mosses and 310 species of lichens grow here, which makes the reserve a leading position among the subzones of the Arctic tundra. Also on the territory of the reserve there are almost all types of landscapes characteristic of the Arctic zone, with the only exception being glacial ones. Exists interesting feature flora, because the height of plants does not exceed 10 centimeters, and the giant among them is considered to be the shrubby willow, growing up to a meter mark.

There are many streams running through the reserve, as well as lakes and rivers that are not very deep. The protected area also includes Herald Island. As for the fauna, arctic wolves, wolverines, arctic foxes, walruses, polar bears, lemmings and seals have become permanent residents of the area.

Currently, eco-tourism is being developed on the island, so getting here is becoming much easier. The complex reserve is being studied by numerous scientists, and the charms of pristine nature bewitch everyone who was able to find themselves in such a unique place.

Wrangel Island is one of the largest islands in the Arctic Ocean and a nature reserve of the same name. It is separated from Chukotka by the Long Strait, whose width is on average 150 km. The area of Wrangel Island is 7670 sq. km, and its most of covered with mountains with a maximum height of 1096 meters.

Wrangel Island is a very harsh region and people have practically never tried to develop it. There were small military bases and polar stations here for a short time, the last of which closed in 2003. But there is no need to make a tragedy out of this, because the island is essentially a desert, and according to the classification it belongs to the Arctic tundra. The fauna and flora are very poorly represented, and titanic efforts must be made to develop these lands. For example, there is no summer here at all and the average temperature even in summer is only 2-3 degrees Celsius and during the remaining 9 months the temperature rarely rises above zero.

History of discovery

The first people lived on the island from ancient times, and the oldest sites found date back to 2 thousand years BC. The remains of the island’s mammoths, the youngest of all those found on our planet, also date back to this period. In appearance, they were dwarf relatives of mainland mammoths. It is unknown exactly when people left the island, but by the time the first explorers arrived, the island was already empty.

Despite the severity of the climate and the impossibility of development, there was a serious struggle for the island, which ultimately ended in favor of Russia. Wrangel Island was first put on maps in 1849 by the English explorer Henry Kellett. He named it after himself - Kellett Land, but the name did not stick, and few people were interested in the island itself. The next news about the island dates back to 1866, when an American trade expedition visited it. The expedition was led by Thomas Long, who named the island in honor of Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel, who searched for this island in the 20s of the 19th century but never found it. The next visitors to the island were the American rescue ship, which was searching for the missing De Long expedition. The Americans landed on the island to inspect its coast and at the same time declared it US territory, but this was somehow quickly forgotten, and in 1911 the Russian icebreaker Vaigach approached the island and planted the Russian flag on the island.

In 1913, an event occurred that again launched a sluggish round of struggle for the island. The Canadian Arctic expedition, sent to explore the Canadian Arctic shelf, was trapped in ice and could not get out on its own. The ship drifted among the ice for some time and ended up near Wrangel Island. A year later, the researchers were rescued, but only half of the team was able to survive the winter. The expedition was commanded by Vilhjalmur Stefanson, who immediately saw the possibility of fishing near the shores of Wrangel Island and planned to establish a colony on the island. However, neither Canada nor Great Britain agreed to his proposal. Then Stefanson decided to act with cunning. In 1921, the first five settlers arrived here and the British flag was hoisted, which immediately gave rise to a big diplomatic scandal. The British quickly disowned the entrepreneur's grief. However, two years later, 13 more settlers arrived here and this time declared the island American territory, which could not go unnoticed, and a small icebreaker with a detachment of military men and armed with cannons immediately headed towards the island. In 1924, he forcibly removed the colonists and hoisted the USSR flag over the island.

This story served as a good lesson, and after the expulsion of the uninvited guests, plans emerged for the colonization of the island by the USSR. 60 colonists were brought to the island, most of whom represented indigenous northern peoples. This event finally staked out the island for Russia. In the 60s, two small military settlements were founded, and military infrastructure facilities were built. In the 90s, residents left the island and the military infrastructure was abandoned.

Flora and fauna

For the most part, the island is inhabited exclusively along coastline, since the sea is the main source of food for almost all animals. For a long time, the interior was inhabited only by small rodents that fed on plant foods, as well as birds. Among the permanent residents of the island's birds are only owls that hunt rodents; the rest of the birds fly to nest, for example, the rarest species of wild hollow geese, which establish their colony here. But there was no place for other predators in the depths of the island, since the rivers and lakes freeze completely and are fishless. In the middle of the century, colonists brought reindeer here, but they scattered across the island and, in the absence of predators, multiplied very quickly. In 1975, musk oxen were brought to the island, which also took root here and found an excellent home for themselves without any threats from predators and humans.

The only one large predator- a polar bear that wanders along the coast in search of food. Also on the shore you can find entire colonies of seals and walruses, which feel very comfortable here, because the human presence here is practically reduced to zero. The walrus colony here is the largest in our country. Birds also choose the coastal zone for their temporary colonies. However, such abundance does not last long and already in the fall, with the onset of ice, many species move away from the coast, or like the polar bear, they simply hibernate until warmer weather arrives, and deer go to the mountain valleys, where they find food for themselves in winter.

The island's plants are not much different from the tundra of other places, but the range of species is unique. Most of these are dwarf plants, and due to the strongest northern winds, their height is no more than 10 cm. But with all this, most species have very ancient origin and has not changed its appearance for many thousands of years. There are a total of 114 on the island rare species, and due to the distance from the mainland and the harsh climate, the composition of plants here has been preserved much better than in others northern islands. There are also small dwarf trees - Willow, which are found in mountain valleys and gorges, protected from the wind. Their size rarely exceeds 1 meter in height.

Wrangel Island, in Chukotka the Island of polar bears “Umkilir”, is located in the Arctic Ocean between the East Siberian and Chukchi seas, 140 km. north of the coast of Chukotka.

Coordinates: 42°43’48 N 133°04’59 E The area of the island is 7670 sq. km. Highest point 1096 m.

Named after Ferdinand Wrangel, Russian explorer of the North. Included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites

The history of the discovery of Wrangel Island

Back in the mid-17th century, Russian explorers heard from the inhabitants of Chukotka about an island in the Arctic Ocean where polar bears live, a lot of fur-bearing animals, and which they nicknamed “Umkilir” or the island of polar bears. In 1645, Cossack Mikhailo Stadukhin, the founder of the Nizhnekolymsk fort, reported: “There are big Island, which stretches against the Yana and Kolyma rivers and is visible from the mother of the earth.” Subsequently, this island was mentioned by many Russian businessmen who tried to open a new business in the north of Siberia. However, no one managed to get to this island. Due to insurmountable ice obstacles, the brave souls were forced to return with nothing.

However, attempts to find Mysterious Island didn't stop. In 1711, the Siberian governor Gagarin specially organized an expedition led by Vasily Stadukhin to search for this island, but their long search was not crowned with success. It was rumored that in 1720, the merchant Ivan Vilegin, having crossed the strait on the ice, was on a large island, but apart from an abandoned sledge and the ruins of an old home, he saw nothing. There were different stories from local residents about the Big Island north of Chukotka, but they were not documented.

After this, almost half a century later, during the famous Bering expedition, the Siberian governor Soimonov instructed the expedition member, Lieutenant Colonel Plenisner, to search for an unknown island. By his decree, in 1763, Plenisner sent Sergeant Andreev and the Russified Chukchi Nikolai Daurkin from Anadyr in search of an unknown island, providing them with dogs, provisions, weapons and escorts. The two groups spent more than a year searching for the island.

Upon returning, Daurkin said that “Opposite the Chukotka Peninsula lie both to the north in the Kolyma Sea and to the east in the Anadyr Sea, unknown lands. One of them in the north in the Kolyma Sea is large and is called Tikigen. Reindeer people live on it, whom the Chukchi call Khrakhoi.” To this he added all sorts of fables apparently heard among the Chukchi from their legends. However, his message that there is a large island to the north of Chukotka was valuable and interesting. Thus, for the first time, at least the approximate location of Wrangel Island was outlined.

“Geodesy Sergeant” Andreev set off in March 1763, accompanied by the Cossack Fyodor Tatarinov and the Yukaghir Efim Konovalov. Leaving Nizhnekolymsk at the mouth of the Krestovaya River, they crossed the ice to one of the small islands. But they could not move further. Difficult conditions of movement on ice hummocks and a lack of food for dogs forced them to return back to Nizhnekolymsk with nothing.

The following year, Plenisner sent Andreev again. But the second expedition did not add anything to the existing information. In a report from 1765 about Andreev’s second campaign it is written: “In 1764, Sergeant Andreev from the last of the Bear Islands spotted what he believed to be the greatest island in the great distance, where he set off on ice on dogs. But, not having reached it about twenty miles, we ran into fresh tracks of an excellent number of reindeer in sleighs of unknown peoples and, being sparsely populated, returned to Kolyma.” Andreev claimed that before turning back he saw something dark ahead, it looked like it was the ground. This information regarding the unknown land north of the Siberian coast served as the subject of numerous discussions, this land was even called “Andreev’s Land.” But no one has seen it, like the fabulous Land of Sannikov.

Why is Wrangel Island called that?

In 1820, an expedition was formed, led by Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel. The terms of the expedition ordered Wrangel to find this uncharted land and make exact description the coast of Siberia between the Yana and Kolyma rivers and further beyond the Shelagsky Cape. The expedition was divided into two detachments: one, under the leadership of Lieutenant Anzhu, went to the Yana River, the other, under the command of Wrangel, to the Kolyma River to conduct searches on both sides. For four years, members of F. Wrangel’s expedition, in incredibly difficult conditions, either by swimming, then on foot, or on dogs, examined everything north coast Eastern Siberia and Chukotka. The results of the expedition were descriptions and maps of the North of Siberia, but they did not find any island.

In summer they covered many thousands of kilometers by boat and on foot, and in winter on dog sleds. Sometimes moving 250-300 kilometers from the coast, Wrangel acquired extensive experience in moving on drifting ice and extensive experience in riding dogs. Many times, in search of land in the ocean, he directed his teams to the north. But despite all their efforts, they never saw the unknown island.

Although Wrangel did not find the new island, his confidence in its existence was so strong that on his map in a certain place the inscription was made: “The mountains are visible from Cape Yacona in the summer.” Subsequently, these coordinates coincided with the location of the island. In addition, the result of Wrangel’s four-year expedition proved that Chukotka is not connected to the American coast by an isthmus and they are separated by a strait. During Wrangel's expedition, the first meteorological service operated in the north of Yakutia for four years. His book “Journey through Siberia and the Arctic Sea” was the first printed publication covering nature, climate, animals and the life of northern people. It spread around the world and was translated into several languages. And the search for the unknown land continued.

In 1849, British explorer Henry Kellett discovered in the Chukchi Sea new island. He named it Herald Island after his ship Herald. To the west of the island, Herald Kellett saw another island, which he put on the map under the name “Kellett Land”; perhaps this was the future Wrangel Island. It was on this island that the first European, Captain Eduard Dalman, landed in 1866, trading with the inhabitants of Alaska and Chukotka.

In 1867, the American whaler Thomas Long, sailing in the Chukchi Sea, approached the shores of an unknown island that did not appear on his maps. He believed that he had found this vainly sought island. At that time, the name of Ferdinand Wrangel was already widely known; he led an expedition to explore the northeastern coast of Siberia, completed three circumnavigations of the world, ruled Russian America for more than five years, and was one of the founders of the Russian Geographical Society. Being an educated and decent person and knowing about Wrangel’s many years of searching, paying tribute to him, the captain named the island in his honor. Since then, on all maps of the world this island began to be called Wrangel Island.

Who owns Wrangel Island?

At one time there were disputes about the ownership of Wrangel Island. The island is located near the coast of Russian Chukotka and has always been considered Russian. According to the 1867 agreement between the Russian Empire and the United States, after the transfer of Alaska to America, the western border of Russia's lands was to pass at an equal distance between the islands of Ratmanov (Russia) and Kruzenshtern (USA) along the meridian 169° west. longitude, and Wrangel Island is located significantly west of this meridian. This means that Wrangel Island unconditionally belongs to Russia.

However, in 1881, the Americans arrived on the island on the steam schooner Thomas Corwin and declared that the island was uninhabited, and therefore would belong to America. The ship's captain Stefanson tried to officially approve this at the level of the Canadian and British governments, but was refused. However, the Americans did not abandon their idea.

In 1911, during the Russian hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean, the crew of the Vaigach steamship landed on the island, carried out a topographic survey and raised a Russian flag over the island, meaning that this was Russian land.

Ten years have passed and during Civil War in Russia, Americans and Canadians took advantage of the confusion and tried to take Wrangel Island into their own hands. On September 16, 1921, they founded a settlement on the island of five colonists: one Canadian, two Americans and one Eskimo woman. But the poorly provided colonists quickly ran out of food, hunting was unsuccessful, and they died, only the Eskimo Ada Blackjack survived.

The Americans did not rest on this and on August 19, 1923 they brought 13 more settlers a second time. No special conditions were created for them and they lived as best they could, barely subsisting on hunting. Their life can be seen in one of the old photographs.

However, the government of young Soviet Russia did not like the actions of the Americans, and in 1924 a hydrographic expedition was sent to the island on the ship “Red October”. In difficult sailing conditions, the expedition arrived on Wrangel Island. Immediately upon arrival, the Pacific sailors hoisted state flag USSR and conducted a topographic survey of the island.

After which 38 skins were confiscated from illegal colonists polar bear, 57 - white foxes, 7 hard drives, more than 4 thousand pieces of cartridges. And the colonists themselves, for illegal hunting of fur-bearing animals and polar bears, were arrested, removed from the island and taken to Vladivostok, where they were handed over to the People's Commissariat of Foreign Affairs. The evacuated colonists, especially women and children taken from Wrangel Island in 1924, owe their lives to Russian sailors. They simply would not survive another winter.

Development of Wrangel Island.

In 1926, a group was sent to the island led by explorer Grigory Alekseevich Ushakov, then still a young man, later a world-famous polar explorer. Several Eskimo families from the villages of Providence and Chaplino moved to the island with them. From this moment the settlement of Wrangel Island began. Ushakov and his colleagues founded a polar station and a village in which 59 people lived along with the settlers. The village was named Ushakovskoye.

The polar station on Wrangel Island was the first Russian meteorological station beyond the Arctic Circle. At that time, this was a completely modern service, armed with the necessary equipment, instruments and communications.

Ushakov lived on Wrangel Island for three years. And although every step of the pioneers who settled this harsh land required severe tests, they withstood them until the arrival of the expedition on the icebreaker Litke in 1928. During his stay on the island, Grigory Ushakov walked around it all, sometimes on dogs, sometimes on foot. He composed the first detailed map and collected extensive materials about its nature.

Grigory Ushakov shared grief and joy, hardships and trials with the first settlers. He helped them in everything, lending weapons, hunting supplies, and food against future booty, for which he received great respect from them. In memory of their first boss, the grateful inhabitants of the island erected an obelisk.

With the arrival of the icebreaker, the staff at the polar station changed, and Ushakov and his colleagues left for the mainland. The settlers settled on the island thoroughly. In Ushakovsky, several houses were built, forming a single street, which was called Lenin Street.

The settlers hunted and fishing. An island rich in fur-bearing animals made it possible to earn good money in one season through good hunting to provide for their families. And the families of such hunters, even at that time, lived quite well and their number gradually increased.

However, there were some kinks. In 1934-35 the head of the winter quarters on Wrangel Island was K. Semenchuk. Being the full-fledged commander of the island, Semenchuk considered his duties as the right of unlimited, uncontrolled command. In relation to the local population, he behaved like foreign traders, considered the Eskimos to be quitters and slackers and did not give them any food or ammunition for hunting weapons. Having disrupted the natives' hunt and left them without meat. Semenchuk at the same time refused to advance them with products, although this system was practiced on Wrangel Island under the previous bosses and was fully justified, since the natives always honestly repaid their debts. As a result, not many survived the winter. And at the first opportunity, many moved to the mainland. A criminal case was opened against Semenchuk and his assistant musher Startsev. The case was considered Supreme Court RSFSR in 1936. The prosecutor was Vyshinsky, and the investigator was Lev Sheinin, writer, author of the book “Notes of an Investigator.” The Supreme Court sentenced both defendants to death.

After this event, life on the island slowed down somewhat for more than 10 years. The weather station continued to work there, but there were no more settlers. It was only after the Second World War that life on the island revived.

In the 1950-1960s, two more settlements were founded - Zvezdny and Perkatkun. Several military infrastructure facilities were built. Then several more small settlements were founded for reindeer herders and hunters. The village of Ushakovsky was considered the center. In the early 1980s, about 200 people lived in Ushakovsky - geologists, meteorologists, scientists, border guards, and hunters from among the indigenous peoples of the North.

Over time, the island began to operate: a village council, a boarding school, a club-cinema, a kindergarten and a boiler room, a reserve office, a museum, and a store with an underground glacier for storing meat. There was a corral for the autumn driving and slaughter of deer, a post office and a hospital. The Rogers Bay polar station operated, and there was a small airfield for AN-2 aircraft and MI-2, MI-6 and MI-8 helicopters. There was an air refueling station with a fuel and lubricants warehouse and a coal storage facility. In Ushakovsky there was a good library, there was a lighthouse, and there was electricity in the houses. Today this is all that remains of the boarding school in Ushakovsky on Wrangel Island, where about 50 children once studied.

But with the beginning of perestroika in the USSR, life on the island began to fade. In 1986, the military facilities were closed, and in 1992 the radar station was also closed. Previously good supplies ceased and residents began to move to the mainland. In the 90s, the only settlement left on the island was the village of Ushakovskoye, which by 2003 was also almost completely deserted. The island became uninhabited. Of the local residents, the last resident of the village of Ushakovskoye remained on the island - shaman Grigory Kaurgin.

Life on the island began to revive only in 2010, when the work of the weather station, where 6 people work, was resumed. Since that time, three caretakers of the reserve have also lived on the island. One of them is Igor Petrovich Oleynikov - the only person officially registered on Wrangel Island.

In 2014, hydrographic work was carried out on the island again, and a base for the Russian Pacific Fleet was established. By the end of the year, a new military camp was erected for employees of the radar post and aviation guidance point. Today, the Polar Star Military Base operates on Wrangel Island, which is one of the most modern structures in the Arctic. Soaring over Wrangel Island again Naval ensign Russia.

Reserve "Wrangel Island"

In 1976, a nature reserve was created on Wrangel Island, which included, in addition to the island itself, the territory of nearby Herald Island and the adjacent 12-mile sea area. The main task of this reserve is to preserve and study the fauna of the island part of the Arctic.

The climate of the Wrangel Island reserve is quite harsh. From February to March, temperatures rarely rise above -30 degrees, and the wind accompanying snowstorms reaches speeds of 40 meters per hour and above. Even in summer there are frosts and snowfalls. Ice masses on the islands remain all year round.

The topography of Wrangel Island is mountainous; mountains occupy more than half of the island's territory. Near the sea they end in cliffs. In places where the banks are flatter, there are sand and pebble spits. In addition, there are streams on the island - more than one and a half thousand, and about 900 lakes.

Herald Island is a high outlier that falls into the sea on all sides with rocky, steep ledges.

Vegetation of Wrangel Island

Despite the harsh conditions, the flora of Wrangel Island is quite diverse, although mainly low-growing shrubs, herbaceous plants and mosses. On the territory of the reserve grow 417 species of vascular plants, 4 types of algae, mushrooms: russula, champignons and others. There are 122 species of moss, several species of polar poppy, and saxifrage. foxtail, forget-me-nots, chickweed, valerian, buttercup, sorrel, Fischer's dupontia and many other plant species.

114 plant species are classified as rare and very rare; these are unique plants that survived the Ice Age. Areas with fertile soil are often covered with thickets of willows no more than 1 m high; in other places, shrubby willows spread along the ground. Some plants are endermics of Wrangel Island, such as: Gorodkova poppy, Wrangel's hollywort, Wrangel's emyatlik, Ushakov's poppy, Wrangel's cinquefoil, Lapland poppy and some others. In the short summer, the island's meadows are covered with a continuous carpet of flowering plants, representing real relict steppes.

Fauna of Wrangel Island

Despite the harsh conditions and scarcity of vegetation, both land and sea animals, as well as a large number of birds, live on Wrangel Island. The largest animals on Wrangel Island are polar bears, musk oxen, reindeer and walruses. Smaller animals include polar wolves, foxes, arctic foxes and a myriad of lemmings.

Wrangel and Herald Islands have long been favored by polar bears for breeding here. The distance from the mainland and the absence of other predators made Wrangel Island a kind of maternity hospital for these polar predators. Wrangel Island has the world's largest concentration of polar bear maternity dens. In the fall, polar bears flock to Wrangel Island from almost the entire Russian north, expecting cubs. Every winter, from 300 to 500 female bears lie down in dens to breed.

In the middle of the last century, many northern regions, including Wrangel Island, began to be intensively developed. The arriving people began to actively hunt polar bears, often not even for food, but simply out of excitement and for pleasure. The number of bears began to drop sharply, so much so that it threatened the complete disappearance of polar bears as a species in the Russian north.

To preserve these animals, they were listed in the Red Book and a hunting ban was introduced. Wrangel Island itself was declared a natural reserve. This gave noticeable results and the number of polar bears stopped decreasing. Moreover, pregnant bears from all over the Russian Arctic region began to return to Wrangel Island. Here nothing disturbs the peace of the bears. Where they set up their dens, any type of activity and even just the presence of people are prohibited. As an exception, these places are visited by scientists studying the life of these animals.

Siberian and ungulate lemmings, common to this region, as well as arctic foxes make up the bulk of terrestrial mammals.

Occasionally, wolverine, fox and wolf are found here. These predators also have enough food on the island.

Walruses constantly live on the island; the largest rookery for these animals is located here. The island serves as a place for them to breed their offspring. Polar bears are frequent guests at such rookeries.

The island is home to quite a large number of musk oxen. They were brought to the island in 1976 from Canada and they took root well, because they had lived here before, but they would have been exterminated. Now there are several hundred of them and they feel great on the island.

Domesticated reindeer were brought here specifically. They took root well, over time they became somewhat wild and now make up some of the fauna of the island.

There are absolutely no amphibians or reptiles on the territory of the reserve, but 169 species of different birds nest here, for example, the common eider and combed eider, the Icelandic sandpiper, the peregrine falcon and the gyrfalcon. By the way, on Wrangel Island there is the largest colony of white goose in Eurasia.

Gray whales, fin whales, and beluga whales are not uncommon in these waters. Sometimes bowhead whales also swim in.

The island is also of paleontological value - sites of ancient humans were found here, as well as traces of a population of small mammoths that outlived their mainland relatives by almost 6 thousand years. By the way, mammoths lived on Wrangel Island relatively recently - only 3.6 thousand years ago.

Tourism on the island

Tourism on the island began to develop only in last years. This is prevented significantly by its removal. But nevertheless, several tourist groups annually come to the cordon called “Doubtful Bay”. Most travel around the island is done by all-terrain vehicles.

Some people prefer to ride ATVs or walk. Here you can visit Mount Perkantun, located in the central part of the island, as well as the Paleo-Eskimo site on Devil’s Ravine. Many excursions include the landing site of Canadian settlers at the mouth of the Predator River, and the Davydov, Predatelskaya and Popov lagoons, where the hunting lodge is located. In cases where there is not much ice at sea, it is also possible water routes along Somnitelnaya Bay and Krasina Bay.

The most interesting activity while traveling around the island is contemplating pure northern nature and the opportunity to closely observe polar bears, walruses, seabirds, and deer in their natural environment.

Having visited Wrangel Island, you have a great opportunity to capture memorable moments and add to your photo collection. Every day and hour spent on this wonderful island will be remembered by you for the rest of your life. This northern region of real, untouched nature, remote from civilization, will always attract you, despite the difficulties overcome.

Archaeological finds in the Devil's Ravine area indicate that the first people (Paleo-Eskimos) hunted on the island as early as 1750 BC. e.

Russian pioneers knew about the existence of the island since the middle of the 17th century from the stories of local residents of Chukotka, but geographic Maps he arrived only two hundred years later.

Opening
In 1849, British explorer Henry Kellett discovered a new island in the Chukchi Sea and named it Herald Island after his ship Herald. To the west of the island, Gerald Kellett observed another island and marked it on the map. The island received its first name: “Kellett's Land”.

In 1866, the first European visited the western island - Captain Eduard Dallmann (German: Eduard Dallmann), who conducted trade operations with the residents of Alaska and Chukotka. In 1867, American whaler by profession and explorer by vocation Thomas Long - perhaps unaware of Kellett's previous discovery, or having misidentified the island - named it in honor of the Russian traveler and statesman Ferdinand Petrovich Wrangel. Wrangel knew about the existence of the island from the Chukchi and during 1820-1824 unsuccessfully searched for it.

In 1879, near Wrangel Island, the route of the expedition of George De Long lay, who tried to reach the North Pole on the ship USS Jeannette. De Long's voyage ended in disaster, and in search of him in 1881, the American steam cutter Thomas Corwin, under the command of Calvin L. Hooper, approached the island. Hooper landed a search party on the island and declared it US territory.

In September 1911, the icebreaking steamship Vaygach from the Russian hydrographic expedition of the Arctic Ocean approached Wrangel Island. The Vaygach crew filmed the coast of the island, landed and raised the Russian flag over it.

Canadian Arctic Expedition 1913-1916
On July 13, 1913, the brigantine of the Canadian Arctic expedition “Karluk”, led by anthropologist V. Stefanson, left the port of Nome (Alaska) to explore Herschel Island in the Beaufort Sea. On August 13, 1913, 300 kilometers from its destination, the Karluk was caught in ice and began a slow drift to the west. On September 19, six people, including Stefanson, went hunting, but due to ice drift they were no longer able to return to the ship. They had to make their way to Cape Barrow. Later, accusations were made against Stefanson that he deliberately abandoned the ship under the pretext of hunting in order to explore the islands of the Canadian Arctic archipelago.

25 people remained on the Karluk - the crew, members of the expedition and hunters. The brigantine's drift continued along the route of George De Long's barque Jeannette until it was crushed by ice on January 10, 1914. The first batch of sailors, on behalf of Bartlett and under the command of Bjarne Mamen, set out for Wrangel Island, but mistakenly reached Herald Island. The first mate of the Karluk, Sandy Anderson, remained on Herald Island with three sailors. All four died, presumably due to food poisoning. Another party, including Alistair McCoy (a member of Shackleton's Antarctic expedition in 1907-1909), undertook an independent trip to Wrangel Island (a distance of 130 km) and went missing. The remaining 17 people under the command of Barlett managed to reach Wrangel Island and went ashore in Draghi Bay. In 1988, traces of their camp were found here and a memorial sign was erected. Captain Bartlett (who had experience participating in the expeditions of Robert Peary) and the Eskimo hunter Kataktovik together set off across the ice to the mainland for help. Within a few weeks they successfully reached the Alaskan coast, but ice conditions prevented an immediate rescue expedition.

The Russian icebreakers "Taimyr" and "Vaigach" twice in the summer of 1914 (August 1-5, then August 10-12) tried to break through to help, but were unable to overcome the ice. Several attempts by the American cutter “Bear” were also unsuccessful.

Of the 15 people remaining on Wrangel Island, three died: two died due to pemmican poisoning, the third was killed. The survivors earned their living by hunting and were rescued only in September 1914 by an expedition on the Canadian schooner King & Wing.

Stefanson's expeditions of 1921-1924
Inspired by the survival experience of the Karluk crew and the prospects for marine fishing off Wrangel Island, Stefanson launched a campaign to colonize the island. To support his enterprise, Stefanson tried to obtain official status from first the Canadian and then the British government, but his idea was rejected. The refusal, however, did not prevent Stefanson from declaring support for the authorities and then raising the British flag over Wrangel Island. This ultimately led to a diplomatic scandal.

On September 16, 1921, a settlement of five colonists was founded on the island: 22-year-old Canadian Alan Crawford, Americans Halle, Maurer (participant of the Karluk expedition), Knight, and an Eskimo woman, Ada Blackjack, as a seamstress and cook. The expedition was poorly equipped, as Stefanson relied on hunting as one of his main sources of supply. Having successfully survived the first winter and having lost only one dog (out of seven), the colonists hoped for the arrival of a ship with supplies and a replacement in the summer. Due to severe ice conditions, the ship was unable to approach the island and the people remained for another winter.

In September 1922, an attempt was made to reach Wrangel Island. gunboat The White Army "Magnet" (a former messenger ship armed during the Civil War) under the command of Lieutenant D. A. von Dreyer, but the ice did not give her such an opportunity. Opinions differ about the purpose of Magnit's campaign to Wrangel Island - it is to suppress the activities of Stefanson's enterprise (expressed by contemporaries and participants in the events), or, on the contrary, to provide assistance to him for a fee (expressed in the newspaper of the FSB of the Russian Federation in 2008). Due to the military defeat of the White movement in the Far East, the ship never returned to Vladivostok, and the Magnit crew went into exile.

After the hunt failed and food supplies ran low, on January 28, 1923, three polar explorers went to the mainland for help. Nobody saw them again. Knight, who remained on the island, died of scurvy in April 1923. Only 25-year-old Ada Blackjack survived. She managed to survive alone on the island until the ship arrived on August 19, 1923.

In 1923, 13 settlers remained on the island for the winter - American geologist Charles Wells and twelve Eskimos, including women and children. Another child was born on the island during the wintering period. In 1924, concerned by the news of the creation of a foreign colony on the Russian island, the USSR government sent the gunboat Red October (the former Vladivostok port icebreaker Nadezhny, on which guns were installed) to Wrangel Island.

"Red October" left Vladivostok on July 20, 1924 under the command of hydrographer B.V. Davydov. On August 20, 1924, the expedition raised the Soviet flag on the island and removed the settlers. On the way back, on September 25, in the Long Strait near Cape Schmidt, the icebreaker was hopelessly jammed by ice, but a storm helped it free. Overcoming heavy ice led to excessive fuel consumption. By the time the ship dropped anchor in Providence Bay, there was only 25 minutes of fuel left, and fresh water there wasn't at all. The icebreaker returned to Vladivostok on October 29, 1924.

Soviet-American and then Chinese-American negotiations on the further return of the colonists to their homeland through Harbin took a long time. Three did not live to see their return - the expedition leader, Charles Wells, died in Vladivostok from pneumonia; two children died along the subsequent journey.

Development
In 1926, a polar station was created on Wrangel Island under the leadership of G. A. Ushakov. Together with Ushakov, 59 people landed on the island, mostly Eskimos who had previously lived in the villages of Providence and Chaplino. In 1928, an expedition was made to the island on the icebreaker “Litke”, on which the Ukrainian writer and journalist Nikolai Trublaini worked as a boiler room attendant, who described Wrangel Island in a number of his books, in particular “To the Arctic - through the Tropics”. In 1948, a small group of domesticated reindeer was brought to the island and a branch of the reindeer-breeding state farm was organized. In 1953, administrative authorities adopted a resolution on the protection of walrus rookeries on Wrangel Island, and in 1960, by decision of the Magadan Regional Executive Committee, a long-term reserve was created, which was transformed in 1968 into a reserve of republican significance.

Gulag
In 1987, former prisoner Efim Moshinsky published a book in which he claimed that he was in a “corrective labor camp” on Wrangel Island and met Raoul Wallenberg and other foreign prisoners there. In reality, contrary to legend, there were no Gulag camps on Wrangel Island.

Reserve
In 1975, musk oxen from Nunivak Island were introduced to the island, and the executive committee of the Magadan region allocated the lands of the islands for a future reserve. In 1976 for study and protection natural complexes Arctic islands, the Wrangel Island nature reserve was founded, which also included a small neighboring island Herald. In connection with the reserve, a reserve protection zone 5 nautical miles wide was established around the islands. total area of the reserve amounted to 795.6 thousand hectares. In 1978, the Scientific Department of the reserve was organized, whose employees began a systematic study of the flora and fauna of the islands.

In 1992, the radar station was closed and the only settlement left on the island was the village of Ushakovskoye. In 1997, at the proposal of the governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug and the State Committee for Ecology of Russia, the area of the reserve was expanded to include the water area surrounding the island with a width of 12 nautical miles, by order of the Russian government No. 1623-r dated November 15, 1997, and in 1999, around the already protected water area, by decree of the governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug No. 91 dated May 25, 1999, a protective zone 24 nautical miles wide was organized.

The island's area is about 7670 km², of which about 4700 km² is mountainous. The shores are low, dissected by lagoons, separated by sand spits from the sea. In the central part of the island the terrain is mountainous. There are small glaciers and medium-sized lakes, arctic tundra.
Relief

The island's topography is highly dissected. The mountains occupying most of the island form three parallel chains - the Northern Range, the Middle Range and the Southern Range - ending in the west and east with coastal rocky cliffs. The most powerful is the Middle Ridge, in which the most high point islands - Mount Sovetskaya (1096 m). The northern ridge is the lowest, it turns into a wide swampy plain called the Academy Tundra. The southern ridge is low and runs close to the sea coast. In 1952, a mountain in the central part of Wrangel Island was named after Leonid Vasilyevich Gromov.

Between the ridges there are valleys with numerous rivers. In total, the island has more than 140 rivers and streams with a length of more than 1 km and 5 rivers with a length of more than 50 km. Of the approximately 900 lakes, most of which are located in the Academy Tundra (north of the island), 6 lakes have an area greater than 1 km². On average, the depth of lakes is no more than 2 m. Based on their origin, lakes are divided into thermokarst lakes, which include the majority, oxbow lakes (in the valleys of large rivers), glacial, dammed and lagoon lakes. The largest of them are: Kmo, Komsomol, Gagachye, Zapovednoe.

Climate
The climate is harsh. For most of the year, masses of cold arctic air with low moisture and dust content move over the area. In summer, warmer and more humid air comes from the southeast with Pacific Ocean. Dry and highly heated air masses from Siberia periodically arrive.

The polar day lasts from the 2nd ten days of May to the 20th of July, the polar night - from the 2nd ten days of November to the end of January.

Winters are long and characterized by persistent frosty weather and strong northerly winds. The average temperature in January is −22.3 °C, with especially cold months being February and March. During this period, the temperature stays below −30 °C for weeks, and there are frequent snowstorms with wind speeds of up to 40 m/s and higher.

Summer is cool, there are frosts and snowfalls, the average July temperature ranges from +2 °C to +2.5 °C. In the center of the island, fenced off from the sea by mountains, summers are warmer and drier due to better air heating and hair dryers.

The average relative humidity is about 82%, the annual precipitation is about 180 mm.

Flora
The first researcher of the vegetation of Wrangel Island B. N. Gorodkov, who studied in 1938 East Coast islands, classified it as a zone of arctic and polar deserts. After a complete exploration of the entire island from the 2nd half of the 20th century. it belongs to the arctic tundra subzone of the tundra zone. Despite the relatively small size of Wrangel Island, due to the sharp regional characteristics of its vegetation, it stands out as a special Wrangel subprovince of the Wrangel-Western American province of the Arctic tundra.

The vegetation of Wrangel Island is distinguished by a rich ancient species composition. The number of species of vascular plants exceeds 310 (for example, on the much larger New Siberian Islands there are only 135 such species, on the Severnaya Zemlya islands there are about 65, on Franz Josef Land there are less than 50). The flora of the island is rich in relics and relatively poor in plants common in other polar regions, of which, according to various estimates, there are no more than 35-40%.

About 3% of plants are subendemic (silver grass, Gorodkov poppy, Wrangel's cinquefoil) and endemic (Wrangel's bluegrass, Ushakov's poppy, Wrangel's cinquefoil, Lapland poppy). In addition to them, another 114 species of rare and very rare plants grow on Wrangel Island.

Similar composition flora allows us to conclude that the original Arctic vegetation in this area of ancient Beringia was not destroyed by glaciers, and the sea prevented the penetration of later migrants from the south.

The modern vegetation cover on the territory of the reserve is almost everywhere open and low-growing. Sedge-moss tundra predominates. In the mountain valleys and intermountain basins of the central part of Wrangel Island there are areas of willow thickets (Richardson's willow) up to 1 m high.

The fauna of the island as a whole is not rich in species, which is due to the harsh climatic conditions.

Fish in the coastal waters of the islands have not been studied enough. There are no fish in the freshwater reservoirs of the island.

At least 20 species of birds regularly nest on the island, another 20 species are vagrants or irregular nesters for the reserve.

The most numerous birds are white geese, which are among the rare animals. They form one main colony in the valley of the Tundra River in the center of Wrangel Island and several small colonies. Passerines are also numerous, represented by snow buntings and Lapland plantains. Brent geese come to the reserve for nesting and molting. Also among the inhabitants of the reserve are eider ducks, Icelandic sandpipers, tules, glaucous gulls, fork-tailed gulls, long-tailed skuas, and snowy owls. Less common in the reserve are dunlins, pouters, Arctic terns, skuas, red-throated loons, crows, and redpolls.

Quite often birds from North America, including sandhill cranes that regularly visit Wrangel Island, as well as Canada geese and various small American passerines, including finches (myrtle warblers, savannah buntings, black-browed buntings, juncos, white-crowned zonotrichia).

The mammal fauna of the reserve is poor. The endemic Vinogradov's lemming, previously considered a subspecies of the hoofed lemming, the Siberian lemming and the arctic fox live here permanently. Periodically, and in significant numbers, polar bears appear, whose maternity dens are located within the boundaries of the reserve. At times, wolves, wolverines, stoats and foxes enter the reserve. Along with people, sled dogs settled on Wrangel Island. A house mouse has appeared and lives in residential buildings. Reindeer and musk ox were brought to the island for acclimatization.

Reindeer lived here in the distant past, and the modern herd comes from domestic reindeer brought from the Chukotka Peninsula in 1948, 1954, 1967, 1968, 1975. The deer population is maintained at up to 1.5 thousand heads.

There is evidence that musk oxen lived on Wrangel Island in the distant past. In our time, a herd of 20 heads was brought in April 1975 from the American island of Nunivak.

The island has the largest walrus rookery in Russia. Seals live in coastal waters.

In the mid-1990s, in the journal Nature, one could read about a stunning discovery made on the island. Reserve employee Sergei Vartanyan discovered the remains of mammoths here, the age of which was determined to be from 7 to 3.5 thousand years. Despite the fact that, according to popular belief, mammoths went extinct everywhere 10-12 thousand years ago. Subsequently, it was discovered that these remains belonged to a special, relatively small subspecies that inhabited Wrangel Island back in the days when Egyptian pyramids, and which disappeared only during the reign of Tutankhamun and the heyday of the Mycenaean civilization. This places Wrangel Island among the most important paleontological monuments on the planet.

Wrangel Island - on the border of the East Siberian and Chukchi Seas, part of Russian Federation. Area approx. 7.3 thousand km2. Height up to 1096 m. It is located at the junction of the western and eastern hemispheres and is divided by the 180th meridian into two almost equal parts. It is separated from the mainland (northern coast of Chukotka) by the Long Strait, which is about 140 km wide at its narrowest part. Administratively it belongs to the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug. It is part of the reserve of the same name. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It got its name in honor of the Russian navigator and polar explorer Ferdinand Wrangel.

The territory of Wrangel and Herald Islands, with the exception of the low-lying plains of Wrangel Island, remained dry throughout the Cretaceous period and the entire Cenozoic era. During powerful Pleistocene transgressions, the territories of the islands were repeatedly separated from the mainland, and during periods of regression of the sea, coinciding with the ice ages, they were part of the vast Beringian landmass, which united the shelves of the East Siberian, Chukotka and Bering seas and connecting Asia and North America. At the same time, the territory of the modern islands was located almost in the center of the Arctic part of Beringia, located north of the modern Bering Strait. It is especially important that throughout the Pleistocene the islands never experienced cover glaciation (there are only traces of mountain-valley glaciation in the central part of Wrangel Island), nor were they ever completely flooded (transgressions covered only the plains of Wrangel Island, and even then no more than half their length). That is, the organic world of the islands has developed continuously since the end of the Mesozoic era.

During the periods of the existence of the Beringian landmass, the territory of the modern islands found itself at the crossroads of migratory flows of plants and animals leading from Asia to America, from America to Asia and from Central Asia to the Arctic region (thanks to the existence during this period of a single “tundra-steppe” hyperzone throughout central arid to the highest latitude regions of Eurasia and North America) and, as is generally accepted, in the center of the largest area of evolution of modern Arctic biota. During periods of transgressions, when most of the shelf land was under water, the islands served as a refugium for many species and communities common on drained shelves. In addition, periodic isolation contributed to the activation of speciation processes on the islands themselves. All this was the reason for the initially high biological diversity of the territory.

The last separation of the islands from the mainland occurred about 10 thousand years ago, which coincided with the global restructuring of Arctic landscapes - the collapse of the single tundra-steppe zone and the massive expansion to the north of hypoarctic flora and fauna. The latter, due to island isolation, appeared in a very weakened form on the islands, which, together with the peculiarities of the physical-geographical situation (landscape diversity, while maintaining the “refugia” of continental conditions), ensured the survival of many relict elements here, as populations of individual species, and entire communities. At the same time, thanks to the same diversity natural conditions, relatively thermophilic hypoarctic elements survived here, having managed to penetrate the island and other similar territories at the Pleistocene-Holocene boundary, but in most cases disappeared as a result of the late Holocene cooling. Until the mid-Holocene, large mammals remained on the island, including the local subspecies of mammoth, which became extinct over the last 5-2 thousand years.

It is known that about 3.5 thousand years ago the island was inhabited by sea hunters, whose culture is classified as Paleo-Eskimo. The results of studies of the only known Neolithic site on south coast The Wrangel Islands indicate that this ancient population of the island used exclusively marine resources (no remains of terrestrial animals were found in the cultural layer of the site). By the time the Wrangel and Herald Islands were discovered by Europeans, there was no indigenous population on them. There were no traces of large land mammals.

The existence of a large island in this sector of the Arctic Ocean was predicted by M.V. Lomonosov. In 1763, Mikhailo Vasilyevich showed on a map of the polar regions north of Chukotka the large island “Doubtful”. The location of this supposed landmass turned out to be close to real island Wrangel. Indigenous residents of Chukotka - subjects Russian Empire, the existence of the island was known long before its discovery by Europeans. The first European who informed the world about the existence of the island was Lieutenant of the Russian Navy Ferdinant Petrovich Wrangel. He learned about the existence of land north of Chukotka from a Chukotka elder. In 1821-1923, the expedition of F. P. Wrangel undertook three trips into the ice in order to find this land. Each time, vast expanses of open water blocked the squad's path, forcing them to turn back to the mainland. The island was not found, but Wrangel was sure that it existed and put it on the map, showing the location correctly in latitude, but slightly shifted to the west.

In 1849, Captain Kellett, commanding the ship Herald, sent to search for the missing expedition of J. Franklin, approached a previously unknown island and landed on it, giving the island the name of his ship, but not even taking its coordinates. To the west of Herald Island, members of Captain Kellett's crew saw the tops of other mountains, considering them islands, but did not continue the geographical survey.
The European who formally discovered Wrangel Island in 1867 was the American whaler Thomas Long. Knowing about the geographical works of F.P. Wrangel, Captain Long gave the island the name of a Russian officer.

The first landing of Europeans on the island occurred only in 1881 - people from the crew of the American ship "Corwin", under the command of Lieutenant Berry, set foot on land (Captain Kellett landed on Herald Island in 1849, in search of the expedition of J. Franklin).

In 1911, the first Russian expedition reached Wrangel Island on the ship "Vaigach", planting the Russian flag on the island, and in 1916 the tsarist government declared the island to belong to the Russian Empire.

Despite this, the Englishman Stephenson in 1921, taking advantage of the devastation in our north, landed an occupation force on the island, raised the British flag and declared that this island was now the possession of Great Britain. The occupation detachment intended for replacement the following year could not be delivered to the island, since the ice did not allow the English steamer to approach the island. The British detachment located on Wrangel Island died from scurvy.
In September 1922, the gunboat Magnit, which was guarding our Russian territories, leaving the port of Nome in Alaska, headed to Wrangel Island to restore Russian ownership of the island and raise the St. Andrew's flag on it. In the twentieth of September, having passed Cape Dezhnev, the Magnit waited for about two days for a change in the northern winds, which drove a mass of ice into the Bering Strait, thanks to which it could not break through.
A second attempt was made a few days later, but was also unsuccessful due to constant northerly winds. Further attempts were unsuccessful: ice began to threaten the integrity of the ship. Due to the need to return to guard the shores of the Kamchatka region and the lack of hope of breaking through the ice, the gunboat Magnit was forced to leave the northern waters.
Thus, the idea of restoring Russia’s rights to own Wrangel Island belongs to the gunboat Magnit, led by its valiant commander, Lieutenant D. A. von Dreyer. The gunboat "Magnit" is the last ship of the Russian Navy under the St. Andrew's flag to leave Russian waters on November 2, 1922.
In 1923, the British delivered a new occupation detachment to Wrangel Island, and in 1924, the Soviet government sent an armed expedition there and restored Russia’s rights to this island, which caused rather tense relations between Moscow and London.
In 1924, the gunboat “Red October” planted the Soviet flag on the island, and two years later the Soviet government adopted a resolution on sovereignty over Wrangel Island. In 1926, the first Chukchi settlement was created on Wrangel Island, and A. Ushakov was appointed head of the island, who was replaced three years later by A. I. Mineev, who worked on the island for five years. A meteorological station was established on the island and regular scientific research began.

In 1928, the air route to Wrangel Island was mastered. A stable all-season connection between the island and the mainland made it possible to expand the colony. The villages of Ushakovsky, Zvezdny, Perkatkun, a school, a hospital, a bathhouse, a pig farm, warehouses for food and goods, fur warehouses, boats for hunting at sea, and a radio station were built. A weather station was equipped at Cape Blossom, and a number of advanced scientific station bases were built on the northern coast of the island. The airfield at Rogers Bay was expanded. Wrangel Island became the forward base for many scientific expeditions exploring the eastern Arctic region. From Rogers Bay, an expedition departed for the Pole of Inaccessibility in April 1941 on the N-169 aircraft (ship commander I. Cherevichny, navigator V. Akkuratov). Aircraft were based on Wrangel Island to ensure the drift of the North Pole-2 station.

The first settlers of the island were mainly indigenous inhabitants of Eastern Chukotka, who were resettled on the island to organize hunting. From the moment they arrived on the island, hunting for arctic fox, walrus, polar bear, white geese, geese and other species of animals began here. In 1948, a small group of domesticated reindeer was brought to the island and a branch of the reindeer-breeding state farm was organized. In addition to the main settlement in Rogers Bay (Ushakovskoye village), in the 60s the village of Zvezdny was built in the bay. Doubtful, where an unpaved reserve airfield for military aviation was built (liquidated in the 70s). In addition, a military radar station was established at Cape Hawaii. In the center of the island, near the mouth of the stream. Khrustalny, rock crystal mining was carried out for several years, for which a small village was also built, which was later completely destroyed.

In 1953, administrative authorities adopted a resolution on the protection of walrus rookeries on Wrangel Island, and in 1968, a reserve was organized on the island to protect walruses, polar bears, nesting grounds of the white goose, brant and colonial settlements of seabirds. In 1975, musk oxen from Nunivak Island were introduced to the island and the Executive Committee of the Magadan Region allocated the lands of the islands for a future reserve.
On March 23, 1976, Resolution N°189 of the Council of Ministers of the RSFSR was signed on the organization of the Wrangel Island state reserve, including Wrangel and Herald islands, to protect the unique natural complexes of the islands. 12/26/83. A resolution was signed by the Magazhan Regional Executive Committee on organizing a 5 km wide protective zone around the islands. In 1997, at the proposal of the Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, the area of the reserve was expanded by including the water area surrounding the island with a width of 12 nautical miles, and in 1999, around the already protected water area, by decree of the Governor of the Chukotka Autonomous Okrug, a protective zone with a width of 24 nautical miles was organized. nautical miles.

By the 80s, the state farm branch on the island was liquidated and the village of Zvezdny was practically closed, and hunting was also stopped, with the exception of a small quota marine mammals for the needs of the local population. In 1992, the radar station was closed and the only one left on the island locality- Ushakovskoe village. In 1994, the reserve office, due to problems with life support in the village. Ushakovskoye was transferred to the village of Cape Shmidta on the Chukotka coast, and in 1999 - to the city of Pevek, which created significant difficulties in the work of the reserve.